Time to Say Goodbye: Senior Recitals
The end of every school year comes with a rush of performances. Senior music majors performing their degree recitals represent particularly bittersweet performances. After nurturing both skills and relationships over their years at Moody, at last comes this final collegiate celebration of their gifting and calling, a milestone that marks the end of this season and the opening of the next.
These recitals covered a wide range of musical disciplines. The voice recitals feature repertoire from classical art song and aria, pop, jazz, musical theater, folk, contemporary Christian, and even original songs. Our composition majors write instrumental, orchestral, choral, film score, video game, piano, and vocal music. Our guitar majors are as likely to play Bach’s composition as they are Bryan Adams’ ‘Summer of ‘69’. This musical banquet is varied and lush!
These recitals are a pivotal learning opportunity for our students. Emma Buterbaugh, voice emphasis, reflects, “My senior recital was one of the most terrifying yet exciting experiences I had in my time at Moody. I was able to use all that I had learned through the years to express meaningful emotions through songs to my family and friends. Though it was a challenge, I am so thankful I had to opportunity to plan and perform this event.” Zhenqi “Lucy” Zhong, who did composition as her emphasis, crafted a unique and beautiful program. In order to express the breadth of her compositional style, she had constantly changing instrumentation and performers. Aside from the work of writing the music, she rehearsed it with her musicians and then conducted most of it during the recital itself. Despite all the work involved, Lucy says, “I have experienced a great moment with a lot of people joining this recital and actually making it happen, which makes me excited.”
It can be a milestone for faculty members, too. This semester, Prof. Allison Keeport, the newest member of the voice faculty, enjoyed coaching her first college-age student through the recital process. A graduate of the Moody music department herself, she said, “It’s a deeply satisfying thing to come full circle like this as I watch my students. I recall my own senior recital with such fondness and such a sense of ‘rightness’, like I was doing in that moment what I was called to do. I hope that our students look back on these recitals with a similar sense of calling and joy and that their recitals become the first of many signposts pointing them towards the creative life that their Father in Heaven has called them to live.”